Letter about child's fatal injuries ruled forgery

It appears prosecutors won't have a key piece of evidence in an upcoming murder trial.

Last week, authorities charged Shawn Michael Oester, 25, of Salisbury with fabricating a confession letter and perjuring himself in court.

When the letter was first presented to police, prosecutors believed it represented a confession from Todd Mitchell, the 23-year-old Meyersdale man charged with killing his girlfriend's 17-month-old boy. Now they believe Oester made the whole thing up.

"This letter was to have been written by a subject charged in the death of a minor child. After testing performed by the Pennsylvania State Police, it was found that (Oester) wrote this letter, not the defendant," investigators wrote in a criminal complaint.

The letter describes, in vivid detail, someone's response to a crying baby boy.

"And I shook the baby first and it wouldn't shut up for me at all. Then I uppercutted (sic) the baby in the jaw," the author wrote. "Now I don't know how to cover it up or make it look like an accident. So I told everyone it fell out of the crib."

Advertisement

Oester handed the letter to police May 30, 2002, claiming he received it from Mitchell while he was biding time in a Maryland County Jail. The letter first came to light two months later, when a portion of it was read aloud at a preliminary hearing.

Defense attorney Jerome Kaharick of Johnstown tried to keep the letter out of evidence, arguing that it was a "meaningless document" with "no evidentiary value at all."

Despite his arguments, the letter was allowed into evidence and Mitchell's charges held for court.

On Aug. 29, 2002 - in an attempt to obtain handwriting samples from Mitchell to authenticate the letter - prosecutors called Oester to the stand. It was then that Oester perjured himself, according to authorities.

Initial handwriting tests on the letter proved inconclusive. But when Oester's handwriting was included in a second round of testing, a match was made.

The testing was performed in a state police crime lab in Harrisburg, according to Assistant District Attorney D. Greg Geary.

"Based on the newly submitted information, an opinion came back from the lab that the letter was authored by Oester and not by Mitchell," he said.

Geary declined to speculate why Oester would have fabricated the letter. In testimony and discussions with police, Oester has described Mitchell as a life-long friend, according to various sources.

Oester is charged with perjury, false swearing, making false reports to law enforcement authorities and fabricating physical evidence. Investigators said Oester lied to a judge, prosecutors and the Meyersdale Borough police.

Even though he could be called to testify in Mitchell's upcoming trial, Oester's whereabouts remain unknown. The county probation department lost contact with him in May and he is no longer responding to mail at his Shade Hollow Road address.

District Justice Arthur K. Cook has issued a warrant for Oester's arrest.

Kaharick called the charges a "significant development," though one he has been aware of for some time. He said he plans to address the issue of the letter during his client's trial.

"It's been blasted all over the papers and media," he said.

Geary confirmed that the letter "will be addressed before trial."

Mitchell's trial is scheduled to begin as soon as a jury is selected.

Officials picked four more jurors Thursday, bringing the total number selected to eight. Officials are trying to seat 12 jurors and four alternates in a sometimes painstakingly slow process made more difficult by the fact that it is a capital case.